"Eating Dangerously:" After deadly food outbreaks, here's what you should know about safety

Dying from a cantaloupe shouldn't have to rank high on a person's list of fears.

Nor should people have to worry that a spinach salad, peanut butter or even an undercooked fast-food cheeseburger might kill them.

Yet — after Colorado-grown cantaloupes killed 33 people in a 2011 outbreak, and salmonella-tainted chicken sent hundreds to hospitals in 2013 — Americans are staring at their plates and wondering what lurks there.

Nearly 50 million Americans will get food poisoning this year. That's one in six people who will get sick from something they ate. More than 100,000 will go to the hospital; 3,000 will die.

The notorious cantaloupe listeria outbreak in 2011 was the deadliest modern-day food poisoning event in America, but it was just one of dozens of multistate, foodborne illness outbreaks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks in any given year.

Among the latest outbreaks was the Foster Farms chicken scare of late 2013, when hundreds of Americans were sickened from poultry containing an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella. Health authorities were criticized for waiting too long to notify consumers who purchased the chicken. The lack of urgency was due in part to the fact it's not illegal to sell salmonella-contaminated chicken in this country.

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Instead of prohibiting the sale of bacteria-laden chicken, federal authorities rely on consumers to cook the meat to at least 165 degrees, killing the bacteria. Except, in the case of the contaminated Foster Farms chicken, that didn't work. Dozens were hospitalized.

The depth of flaws in the food-safety system in this country struck us as we wrote about the melon outbreak tracked to a fourth-generation farm in tiny Holly in southeastern Colorado. How often would you guess federal inspectors had visited the farm prior to the outbreak? Once every few years? Once a year?

Owner Eric Jensen examines a cantaloupe at Jensen Farms, site of a listeria outbreak that became a deadly incident of foodborne illness. (Ed Andrieski, The Associated Press)

1. The fox guards the henhouse, all too often: Here's something the producers of deadly cantaloupes, killer peanut butter and lethal eggs had in common: embossed certificates from third-party auditors, paid by the producers, declaring their production first-rate. There aren't enough federal inspectors to check on farms and manufacturing plants, so producers hire their own auditors to grade them. Congress has criticized this repeatedly but done nothing about it. Consumers can seek out retailers with tougher safety standards, including Costco and Omaha Steaks.

2. If everyone is in charge, is no one in charge? It's hard to keep track of the mishmash of agencies and responsibilities. Fresh produce? The FDA and state governments. Slaughtered beef? USDA. A product with cooked beef in it, like lasagna? FDA. Raw eggs at the farm? FDA. Liquid eggs? USDA. Flounder? FDA. Catfish? USDA. Consumer advocates have recommended an overarching food safety agency to make sense of all this, but bureaucracy and competing industries put off the idea.

3. If food illness strikes, Colorado is a good place to be. The "CSI" of a food-illness investigation is fascinating, and some states, including Colorado, are fast and efficient, nailing the target within days or weeks. Still, we found that many states and the CDC are reluctant to disclose information even when they know who is at fault. Some federal reports on massive nationwide outbreaks — including more than one linked to Taco Bell — don't name the ubiquitous chain famous for its chihuahua. Instead, public reports refer to something like "restaurant chain A." Watchdog sites such as Food Safety News disclose more.

4. Punishing the perpetrators is rare: Most of the time, food producers are not criminally charged even when people die. The majority of punishment for selling contaminated food happens in civil court, under the cloak of secrecy that comes with confidential settlements. In rare cases, including that of the Jensen brothers who grew the Colorado cantaloupes, charges were filed (the two were sentenced to probation and ordered to pay restitution). Nationwide, the industry is closely watching the criminal case against a handful of Peanut Corporation of America executives accused of ignoring and covering up positive salmonella tests, choosing instead to ship contaminated peanuts.

5. The "danger" list holds surprises: The list of foods most likely to cause an outbreak doesn't include processed chicken nuggets or bags of potato chips. It's the foods not so far removed from a field of dirt or a barn that are more dangerous, at least in how often they cause outbreaks. Among the most notorious: sprouts, ground meats, peppers, tomatoes and oysters.

6. High-tech help for low-tech foods: Industries that have experienced the expense and heartache of a deadly national outbreak are now some of the leaders in food safety.

Earthbound Farm, the source of a shelf-clearing spinach outbreak in 2006, led the charge to a new era in California greens farming. The company tests when the produce comes in from the fields, and tests again before it sends packaged products to stores.

Cargill Meat Solutions, which recalled 36 million pounds of ground turkey in 2011, now puts ground turkey in a cylinder-shaped, high-pressure vessel that destroys salmonella cells.

7. Chicken is the new ground beef: More consumer watchdogs and legal advocates are challenging why raw chicken is allowed to float in pools of juice laden with salmonella and other pathogens, long after steps were taken to crack down on E. coli in ground beef. Overuse of antibiotics in animal feed has contributed to resistant strains that pose even greater threats to humans.

8. The underfunded Food Act: President Obama heralded a new era of progress in signing the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act. Three years later, activists are still fighting the FDA to finish writing safety rules long past due in the act. And Congress has never come close to funding the new inspectors needed to enforce it.

9. The whole world is in your kitchen: Imported foods take up more and more space in your fridge and cabinets, and even the FDA acknowledges it can't keep ahead of the tide. Shrimp from Asia, beef "trim" from all over, spices from the Middle East, all pose new hazards. It's even more important for consumers to follow safe-handling rules when they don't know the origins.

10. Don't waste worries on spilled GMO milk: You might fear genetically modified foods because you don't like big corporations, or because you prefer local, smaller farms. But don't worry about food safety — a solid, international scientific consensus declares them safe for humans. Clear labeling would help eliminate many fears.

Scrub melons, apples, carrots — pretty much all fruits and veggies you are going to eat raw — with a scrubber (like the kind used for potatoes). Occasionally run the scrubber through the dishwasher on the sanitary cycle.

Even wash bananas if you are going to cut them in half. As with melons and other whole fruit, a knife can drag bacteria from the peel into the fruit. The bacteria continues to grow as the uneaten half sits on the counter or in the fridge.

Don't rinse meat before you cook it because you will likely spread bacteria around your kitchen and in your sink.

Get a good meat thermometer, and learn how to use it.

Eat leftovers within three days and cut-up fruit within a day. Traditional advice that leftovers can last a week is being discarded by some state-university experts.

Editor's note

Jennifer Brown and Michael Booth are the authors of "Eating Dangerously: Why the Government Can't Keep Your Food Safe, and How You Can." Brown is a Denver Post reporter. Booth covered health care for The Post and is now managing editor of The Colorado Health Foundation's magazine, Health Elevations. The authors will talk about "Eating Dangerously" at 7 :30 p.m. March 14 at the Tattered Cover, 2526 E. Colfax Ave.

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